Ultraviolet is the most expensive music NFT sold to this date. It was made by an American DJ that’s better known by his stage name 3LAU. He is a big of the NFT world and he believes they have an important role in the future. Ultraviolet was released in 33 copies. Each NFT that was redeemed also gave the owners a special edition physical vinyl, unreleased music, and a unique experience. The highest bidder got a chance to collaborate with 3BLAU to create a new song.
3LAU
$11.7 Million
Music album
Personal website
Does the bird fly over your head? is officially the first music NFT album released. Once the rolling stone maganize and other websites wrote that Kings of Leon will publish the world’s first NFT music album, Belave quickly reacted. They have published the album as an NFT on the blockchain 36 hours before KOL which made them the first band to do it. It was almost as if they were doing it intentionally just so the “mainstream” bands can’t get into the NFT history.
Belave
$260
Music album
Zora
NFT Yourself is an album published by world-wide known band Kings of Leon. It was previously thought to be the first music album in the NFT history, until Belave beat them by 36 hours. Nevertheless, they have ended up selling their music collection for approximately $2 million dollars at that time. They have still made it to the history as a band that made success both in the NFT space and in the real world.
Kings of Leon
$2 Million
Music album
YellowHeart
Space Yacht Iconography Collection Vol. 2 Open Editions is an NFT collection that combines music and crypto-memes into a single body. Every song that’s in this collection is available only as an NFT and it cannot be found on any other platform. The collection ended up selling for $482 thousand which is a pretty impressive number. Space Yacht co-creator LondonBridge, a known DJ is responsible for the music, while Sahir Khan is responsible for the animations.
Space Yacht
$482 Thousand
Music and animation
Nifty gateway
Playboy is an NFT album released by a multi-platinum music artist Tory Lanez. The album ended up selling for $400 thousand. Even though his streaming numbers decreased after a shooting incident in 2020, he still managed to sell out his whole album. Other than 3 unreleased tracks on this NFT album, Tory Lanez has also allowed the 450 owners to meet him virtually and talk to him about whatever they want to.
Tory Lanez
$400 Thousand
Music album
Bondly Finance
EulerBeats Genesis LP 01 is a combination of music and art, that’s combined into an NFT. The beats used in this NFT are actually generated by using phi function that was first mentioned by a famous mathematician Euler. Every collection made by EulerBeat Genesis uses this Euler function, hence its name. This particular NFT was sold for 300ETH which was around $533 thousand at the time. It’s awesome to see how someone can pair animations, music, mathematics and nfts into one thing.
EulerBeats Genesis
$533 Thousand
Music and animation
MARKETPLACE
Darken the Shadow is one of the first music NFT albums released on the blockchain. PelleK is a Norwegian singer and song writer who decided he was going to release his whole album as an NFT. It turned out to be an amazing decision because he made $160 thousand once he sold out the whole NFT album. Holders got one song airdropped to their wallets once per week until the whole album was eventually airdropped. Other than that, they got some extra bonuses like a bonus track, special edition PolkaPet NFT, and an invite to PeleeK’s private discord server.
PelleK
$160 Thousand
Music album
Bondswap
I FUCKED RYDER RIPPS is an controversial NFT published by the famous musician Azealia Banks. This sex-tape NFT was recorded by Azealia Banks and her ex. boyfriend, Ryder Ripps. What’s crazy about this NFT is that the owner will get both a .WAV file and 1 of 1 signed LP vynl record. The owner will also have full ownership, which means he can do whatever he wants with the owned NFT, including commercial usage.
Azealia Banks
$18 Thousand
Audio sex-tape
Foundation
Samurai #100 is an NFT that’s published by JingleBe. It’s a part of the NFT Jingle collection where each collectible represents a feeling that’s portrayed through music. It’s a unique project made by two artists Philip Schwar, the producer, and Flynn Kliemann, musician and movie maker. This specific NFT has sold for $18.6 thousand which is quite impressive for a jingle that’s 0:54 minutes long. Each jingle has an image attached to it.
JingleBe
$18.6 Thousand
Music and animation
OpenSea
Plastikman – Plasticene (1993) Edition of 1 is an NFT released by Richie Hawtin, better known by his stage name, Plastikman. The first buyer has received a gallery-grade framed picture of Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer used to create the iconic first album by Plastikman, called Sheet One. This NFT combines the mentioned photography and melody recorded in May 1993 by Plastikman. It’s an edition of 1, meaning there will be no more copies. It sold for $25.8 thousand on OpenSea.
Plastikman "Acid Drop - Sheet One"
$25.8 Thousand
Music and animation
OpenSea
We’d gladly involve all music projects in our list because we love the NFT world, but we can’t. In order to rank them by their quality and value, we had to come up with criteria. This is how we evaluate the best NFT music:
So, before we can start explaining what benefits you can have as a musician or collector, let’s explain what is NFT music? NFT music is one of a kind digital asset that’s permanently stored on the blockchain.
It includes a music file, proof of ownership and it can have additional things that are all visible in the public smart contract for that NFT. Some can include royalty fees programmed in.
Why would someone pay for NFT music when you can download it?
Well, why would you pay for a movie when you can download a torrent? Because when you pay for it, you support the author and he can continue creating art. Everyone deserves to earn for his honest work.
Other than “supporting”, NFT ownership is easily visible on the blockchain, so you can prove that you own something within seconds. All you have to know is the public record that took place when you had purchased the music.
You don’t have to remember the URL, you can always find it in the payment history of your digital wallet or on the NFT marketplace where you have bought NFT music.
NFT music mostly comes in pair with animation, but some authors have also released their albums and songs in audio formats only. At the end of the day, that decision is on the artist.
Some artists such as Kings of Leon or 3LAU have released full music albums as an NFT. Artists will mostly include bonus content with the song, such as vinyl, artwork, or even a chance to create a new song with the artist.
NFT music is a great new way for artists to earn money by selling directly to fans. Other than the marketplace and transaction fees, artists will get the total sale amount.
As you could have guessed, there are different music genres and types that can be purchased on the NFT marketplaces. We have already mentioned how some music comes bundled with animations, but let’s go through all types:
These are the basic three types of music NFTs. It’s worth mentioning that many of the artists will include physical bonuses for the owners of their NFTs. These can be vinyl records, VIP tickets, artworks, and many other things.
You can be creative as there are no limits on what you can include with your NFTs.
As for the music genres, we’ve seen it all. From rock, rap, blues to acid and techno. Most of the popular NFT marketplaces will not dictate which music genres you can sell.
If you are wondering what audio formats you can use, we’ll go through them all. We went through the most popular NFT marketplaces and checked what are the supported formats.
These three formats are the most widely used for NFT music. However, if you are working with different formats or different devices, there is a solution for you as well.
You can use converters to change the file format that you have into the format supported on the NFT marketplace. That being said, please notice that changing the formats might decrease the sound quality, but you probably already know that.
If the format you are using is not supported, but you must keep it in that one, you can always include a download link in the “unlockable content” part of your NFT listing. You can also deliver your items after purchase by contacting the user.
One example where the user got something special after buying an NFT is the Ultraviolet NFT. Buyers of this NFT got a physical vinyl to their home address.
Yes, you can publish voice recordings as NFT.
The beauty of NFTs is that you can sell whatever you want. If the marketplace doesn’t support it natively, you can deliver it through 3rd party links. NFTs are great because of the proof of ownership, not the art itself.
If you want to prove you own something, all you have to do is share the public transaction. You can also show it on your digital wallet which has a public address.
Voice recordings can easily be an NFT. Take podcasts, for example, there isn’t really a difference between a voice recording and a podcast. If you are wondering whether there is a podcast published as an NFT already, yes there is.
The first NFT podcast is the “Techmeme Ride Home podcast interview episode with Garry Tan” published on Rarible.
Instead of relying on Google ADS or Patreon, podcasters can now get paid directly. You can create 100 editions of your podcast episode, and sell it like that. In this case, there isn’t a mediator other than an NFT marketplace if you are selling on it.
If you want to sell your music successfully, you have to work on your marketing. Marketing can be expensive and time-consuming, but that’s why have written some tips to help you sell your music as an NFT.
Remember, you should always provide quality content for your fans. If someone is ready to go through the process of purchasing an NFT, make sure it’s worth it.
Just because we read about 3LAU selling his music album for $11.7 million dollars, it doesn’t mean every music NFT is that expensive. In the reality, most people do not pay high prices for NFT music.
If you take a look at who are those that made so much money with NFT music, you’ll quickly notice how they already had an established fanbase. Many people are buying NFTs hoping that they can flip them for a profit, and it’s always easier to re-sell art if it comes from a known artist.
Both Kings of Leon and 3LAU are world-known artists. They have fans all over the world that are ready to support them even if it means creating a digital wallet.
Surely, it’s much easier to sell something when you have an established fanbase, however, that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. There are plenty of other artists who didn’t make millions but still made a fair sum. NFTs can be an additional stream of income, which is also a good thing.
Some of the people investing in music NFTs are simply supporting the cause, however, most of them are here to make money. Whether that’s by flipping items they bought or earning money in the NFT virtual worlds.
Surely, you would prefer if just your fans bought your music NFTs, but sometimes that’s not the case. That being said, you’ll still make money, so you need to maximize profit.
To do that, you’ll need to provide unique value as we have previously mentioned. If you don’t know what to do or how to promote, we can help, but more about that later on.
Other than possibly making millions overnight, there are a bunch of other reasons why you should sell your music as an NFT. The first and the obvious one is because right now there is a small number of artists publishing their NFTs.
Why is that a good thing?
Right now you have a much lower competition. It will be much harder to compete when many other famous artists come to NFT marketplaces. They already have a strong fan base, so most smaller music artists will struggle to get recognition.
Other than that, you would no longer depend on music labels that much. Sure, they can promote your music and get you out there, but at what costs? They take a big percentage of your future earnings.
You can bypass this by using blockchain technology and selling directly to your buyers. You’ll get the money directly to your digital wallet as soon as your NFT is sold.
As the music NFTs grow in popularity, we expect music labels to join at a certain point. They’ll probably create strong marketplaces for music artists, but right now you can go on your own and build your fan base.
Now that we have mentioned all this, let’s go through the pros and cons of selling your music as an NFT.
There are also some cons when you are selling your music as an NFT, so let’s go through them.
Obviously, there is a big-money opportunity when we talk about NFTs. We are not talking about making 11.7$ million like 3LAU, but you can still make serious money.
NFT marketplaces are on the rise, within a year the total volume went from 50$ million to several billion dollars. That’s a big jump and it proves that NFTs are “hot” right now.
Surely, there are some of you who are not into music for the money, but it would still be awesome to make some money in the process, wouldn’t it?
There are plenty of ways to make money in this space, whether it’s by selling songs or whole NFT albums. It’s up to you how you want to publish your work.
What is NFT album?
NFT album is just like any music album out there, however, it’s published as a non-fungible token on the blockchain. What does that mean? Each person can verify the ownership of the album by taking a look at the transaction that’s permanently stored on the public blockchain.
You can deliver the whole album with all the songs included all at once, or you can airdrop it. What is an airdrop? Well, it is mostly used as a giveaway tactic to promote an NFT or crypto project, but you can use it to deliver songs from the album as well.
Once the person has bought your NFT album, you can airdrop them a song every week/month. Just like PelleK from our ranking list has done. He had airdropped a song every week for those who bought his album. This can be used as a tactic to fund your album that’s still in the making.
There are certain fees associated with creating music NFT, and we’ll go through them right now. The first fee is the minting fee, but what is minting anyway?
Minting is a process when your music becomes an NFT. In other words, it’s when your music is stored on the blockchain. So how do you mint your music?
If you don’t want to get into technical stuff, you should use NFT marketplaces to mint your music for you. All you have to do is upload the music and the marketplace will handle the rest.
Now that we have explained it, it’s worth mentioning that this process usually costs you a small fee. Certain marketplaces like OpenSea won’t charge you for the minting process either.
OpenSea does so-called “lazy minting” where your work isn’t minted until sold. Even when sold, the buyer will pay the minting fee.
If you want to minimize the minting fee, you should choose a blockchain that has lower transaction fees. That’s because minting actually involves writing a record on the blockchain, which requires a transaction to be made.
Blockchains that support NFTs and have low transaction fees are:
There are other blockchains that support NFTs, but these are the most popular ones.
Other than the minting fee, some marketplaces have also got a listing fee. This fee has to be paid for each NFT you want to list on their marketplace. We have ranked the best NFT marketplaces, so you can decide which one to sell on.
These two fees are the only ones to create an NFT. However, once you have sold the item, you’ll have to pay the commission to the marketplace and also a transaction fee to move your funds to a wallet or exchange.
Most marketplaces don’t set a maximum file size based on the category of the NFT, but the file itself. It doesn’t matter if you are uploading a GIF, MP4, or WAV, the maximum file size is the same.
Most marketplaces will allow you to upload files of up to 50MB. As you can see, this might not be enough for the whole album. However, you can always include a download link in the “Unlockable content” if the marketplace supports it.
There are some marketplaces that will allow much bigger files, such as Mintable. On Mintable, you can upload files up to 3GB, and the preview file can be up to 200MB large.
If you want to include the song on a marketplace that doesn’t support big files, but you don’t want them to download through an external link, convert the songs. You can convert WAV to MP3 and save a lot of space, however, the songs will lose some quality as well.
Since we have previously mentioned that you should not compromise on quality, we advise against MP3. Some people will argue that the difference is barely noticeable, but if someone is paying for your music, you should deliver only the best.
Now you’ll learn about the best feature in the NFT space, royalty fees. What if we told you that you can earn from your music even when you have already sold it?
How is that possible?
Well, each NFT has a “smart contract” that defines how it acts and how it will act in the future. When you publish an NFT, smart contracts are permanently stored on the blockchain. The best thing about smart contracts is that you can input royalty fees into them.
Most marketplaces provide this feature. Some NFT marketplaces will even let you set a custom royalty fee.
How do you receive payment from royalty fees?
Each time you sell your music, you also receive a royalty fee. Since NFTs can be re-sold, you receive a fee out of that transaction as well. There are no levels to it, you get the royalty fee forever.
Most marketplaces will have the royalty fee set at 10%, however, some even go as high as 15%. Royalty fees are a great way to earn a passive income from your music work.
For example, if you sold your music for a cheap price because you were not that known, that could change in the future. If you become famous, your first music work would probably raise in price, and each time someone re-sells your music NFT, you’ll make a profit.
NFTs are really changing the whole music industry and the way artists will work with music labels. By utilizing blockchain technology, you gain more power over your work.
So, you went through this whole article, but still don’t know if you can sell your work? Let us tell you, yes, you can.
If your music is good and maybe you even have a small fan base, you should go for it. Perhaps you worry about the marketing and promotion of your work, so let us help you with that.
Even though the NFT marketplaces are still “young”, there is competition. You shouldn’t rely on the random factor that someone will accidentally find your music on the marketplace. Instead, you should promote yourself.
The ideal way to promote yourself is to use all of the marketing channels that are available. Those channels include:
BestNFTs.com is the #1 independent authority on NFTs. We have a team of expert researchers who analyze market trends and news every day.
We provide an advertising service on our website. You can promote your music NFT if we approve you. If approved, we’ll happily add you to the list of best NFT music that you could have seen at the beginning.
Our visitors come to learn about NFTs which means you would get the exact buyers that you want. Your project will be easy to find and all our visitors are your potential new buyers. When you compare how much you can potentially earn, you’ll quickly see how our listing fee is actually cheap.
What are you waiting for? Start promoting your NFT music on our website and get the attention you deserve.
This part of the minting process cost is related to the blockchain, and not the marketplace. That being said, NFT Marketplaces cannot profit from gas fees, if anything, it hurts them in the long run.
TOP COMMENT
Bryan Klein
From the very start of the project DMA’s design team admitted that our existing website looked like it was straight out of the 90s. A lot of that stemmed from the fact that it was indeed originally built in the 90s. We let them have a lot of free reign to tell us how different parts of the website should be designed and organized since they were the experts. The whole project took around 11 weeks to complete, but we noticed an immediate improvement in our sales process within just hours of launching the new website. We had previous customers reach out to us congratulating us for joining them in the 21st century and even some of our competitors thought the website was beautiful. Needless to say our sales processes and customer trust have both improved incredibly.